grounding question!!??

I

ISHIELDS

New member
i have now wired many guitars...learning by looking at diagrams on line and getting GREAT advice here...so i have a question...and really, it is regarding a guitar i am currently working on: i finished my schematic for this guitar, only to notice that there are around 12 wires going back to ground at the top of the vol pot. the wires for these pickups are pretty dainty, but that's still A LOT of wires to the top of one mini pot.....my question is this, then: since the tone pot is grounded to the vol pot, would it hurt anything, or would i notice in the sound, if i distributed some of the ground wires back to the tone pot...or even somehow make one single lug that all of the grounds go to, then from the lug back to the vol and tone pots? am i wrong in thinking that this idea should work fine, without causing any sort of buzzing/humming/interference?

thanks in advance!
 
You can do a 'star' ground using a washer if none of the pots or other surface areas are enough for all the ground points needed. All that matters is that wires that need to go to ground can find a path all the way to the jack ground. Doesn't matter if it's done off the back of a pot, or a lug (if it's large enough), or putting all the grounds onto a washer that is connected to the jack ground. I've even wired a guitar where I put all the grounds directly on the jack ground before.
 
ISHIELDS said:
i have now wired many guitars...learning by looking at diagrams on line and getting GREAT advice here...so i have a question...and really, it is regarding a guitar i am currently working on: i finished my schematic for this guitar, only to notice that there are around 12 wires going back to ground at the top of the vol pot. the wires for these pickups are pretty dainty, but that's still A LOT of wires to the top of one mini pot.....my question is this, then: since the tone pot is grounded to the vol pot, would it hurt anything, or would i notice in the sound, if i distributed some of the ground wires back to the tone pot...or even somehow make one single lug that all of the grounds go to, then from the lug back to the vol and tone pots? am i wrong in thinking that this idea should work fine, without causing any sort of buzzing/humming/interference?

thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

I've done just this and I didn't notice any sonic difference. As long as the grounds are connected somehow.
 
As far as I've been able to tell, ground loops don't matter in guitar wiring. They're a waste of wire, but don't really add any noise. Otherwise shielding a guitar cavity would cause noise - when you shield the cavity there are plenty of paths that signal can take to ground as every pot and switch will be contacting the shielding.
 
Yep, ground loops are not a problem for guitars... But I do star ground when I've got a whole lot of grounds to clean up the wiring and make it easier to troubleshoot.
 
It doesn't matter HOW you do it, just as long as all of the ground wires and ground connection points (backs of pots, bridge, switch ground, jack ground, ground lug on vol pot, etc) are grounded to each other.
I prefer to connect several wires together (twist then solder and cover with heat-shrink) with a single "pigtail" that can be grounded to a pot. All pot backs also need to be connected.
 
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